The Amazing Digital Circus - Western Isekai that probably will become Hazbin Hotel killer

[The Lawgiver]

that reminds me, me and the lads recently watched Tim Burton's Hansel and Gretel
it's like a Tim Burton joint, but without all the chill for the mainstream
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5r4dbK5vm9s

It was a disney channel special that aired only one year only and never got an official release IIRC (might have also been a dvd extra at some point) but yeah the uploads on youtube are very very crusty

 

[TingoFranDingo]

I think the most immediate threat now is that all the Abstractions in the basement are probably gonna escape.
If I were a betting man I would say the resolution is going to be recreating Caine. Get a form of status quo.
fingers crossed we get an extended and updated version of the intro/main song

 

[The Lawgiver]

I think the most immediate threat now is that all the Abstractions in the basement are probably gonna escape.
If I were a betting man I would say the resolution is going to be recreating Caine. Get a form of status quo.
fingers crossed we get an extended and updated version of the intro/main song

caine gets revived and introduces himself with the "i am your bitch" meme

 

[Clown]

This tells us a lot.

• The Circus originally started with Caine and the "paraphernalia engine", Oct 15th 1996
• Scratch was the first 'outsider' to arrive, Oct 15th 1999
• Ragatha arrived Oct 15th 2008. This is significant because: A) everything seems to be happening on Oct 15ths and B) in an earlier episode Ragatha doesn't get a Breaking Bad reference, which is plausible considering Breaking Bad only premiered January 20th 2008
• Bubble is confirmed as an AI, arriving the same day as Caine and sharing the same .lisp programme. Could go further and say Bubble was meant to be another AI for creative ideas since they're saved as bubble-chef.lisp however it's purely speculation

There's bound to be more things found out over the coming days as people rewatch it over and over.

 

[LucasSomething]

It's out, i watched live. If you don't want to be spoiled go watch it before reading this comment because i'll ramble about it.

okay

-We get a flashback for the first time EIGHT EPISODES IN. What is it for? So queenie can appear for 10 seconds. Why? So they can sell merch of her. That's it. That is literally it.
-So they have a very quick "lets be upset at jax for pressing the button but lets get over cause it didn't matter anyway" scene that i expected. They're all sad and friends now.
-Okay so Caine has a breakdown. He is eeeeeeevil broken AI that hates humans and unironically calls himself a god with a spooky voice filter. He even makes a joke on "no need to scream if you have no mouth" joke. He literally becomes AM and starts torturing everyone for funsies.
-Second to last episode Pomni finally decided to put a bucket on kinger and we can have actually real plot exposition. Turns out this C&A is real but they made criative AI and not games and caine was the first one. The start of the episode shows him eating "circus data", breaking down, being locked and escaping to eat the other AI (presumably abel cause ya know, bible).
-Kinger mentions anothers programmer had a brain tumor and jax has another panic attack because "it's real".
-Kinger say everyone can conjure but he needs a pc (why can't he conjure a pc?). Pomni conjures an exit and goes to the fake offices to get a pc. Everyone distracts cain and triggers him so he gets mad and puts them in their nightmares or some shit. Kinger accidentally deletes cain. episode ends.

OKAY. So, this episode was good with caveats. It's nice to finally say "WOW THE PLOT HAPPENED!" but it feels bad when you remember it ends the next episode and i don't know wtf this is going, assuming Caine stays like this. If i had to guess, the next episode will feature more flashbacks and exposition and there is too much here to adress.

The brain tumor thing is a big red flag into "everyone is dead" theory and i'll make my own dumb theory here. I assume the headsets were meant to help people with brain problems or test on people who are dying and Jax for some reason remembered that includes him. The symbolism on their nightmares probably implies how they died and i expect only pomni and jax to be alive by the end.

Anyway, this episode still has issue where most of the episode are character literally slow walking in silence, sitting around venting, spelling out their backstory, with "hype moment animation" in between.

And 'i'll actually defend this show here, as much as i complain about the trauma dump sections, it feels like this show doesn't even trust the audience with them and has to slap something inbetween or else the viewer will fall sleep. I wonder if Goose actually wanted this episode to be 30 minutes of talking until glitch pointed the gun at him and said "Goose you retard, the children won't watch that and we have animators to pay. Make up a music video for caine right now!"

Maybe I'm missing something, but it feels like entirety of Pomni's plan to use Kinger only works because of insane plot armor? How come Caine was able to hear anyone anywhere in the circus (even in the same episode he teleports Pomni right away when she starts talking shit about him), but when they talking about distraction plan he suddenly doesnt hear it?

Caine is basically plot device god. As the plot demands, he changes from omniscient and omnipotent to dumb robot who can't see shit directly in front of him. Since it's episode 8/9 and it's too fucking late, he flips between both all over.

 

[Niggerphobe]

 

[BigJoey41X]

I liked this episode, so, Goose is generally way better at writing plot stuff than anything character-driven, makes me wonder why we are only getting it at the ending stretches instead of the really half-assed attempt to try and flesh most of the cast out in the previous episodes.

 

[8GB VRAM]

what about the getting eaten fetish, or does that count as islamic.

With Kinger's quip after the Gloink Queen spat Zooble back out, I chocked it up to being just a Little Runmo reference, but I guess that does count. When the episode 7 moment happened though my mind flashed back to the General Nausea drawing from the zip file dump.

All I'm going to say is that this episode was what the last one should've been.

On some level I feel like they were meant to be intentional parallels, but to what end I have no idea. Evidence for SOMA theory/the humans being AIs as well? Abel being Caine's idealized, obedient version of Kinger? Lazy writing? Makes more sense given this was supposedly part 1 of the finale that had to be split into 2 episodes for time, have the first half be a quick runback ending up with Caine's deletion then Jax takes control of the circus or the abstractions come out the cellar or whatever for the big climactic finale setpiece. Though if having it be one episode meant the song had to get cut, I'm glad it saw the light of day. I'm a sucker for that jazzy showtime kind of tune.

 

[Ultraman Orb Dark]

Well, it only took at least five episodes of spinning its wheels, but the show finally remembered it's supposed to be a horror story... and that it's supposed to have a story.

 

[AssignedEva]

Definitely. My guess is
Bubble is the vestige of Abel still inside Caine, hence why Bubble's frequently an anomaly and goes against Caine's wishes. Bubble's not just a complex character AI, but a powerful AI within itself. The appearance and character's also symbolic of Bubble's greatest struggles, literally being trapped in a bubble while Caine's forced to play ringmaster. The idea that the characters' bodies are meant to be perfect reflections of their minds could very well apply to the AIs themselves.

Quite notably, Bubble is still there after Caine gets deleted. So I imagine Bubble will play a role in the finale.

The implication is that Caine started using his powers to block Kinger's attempt to hack into his system with all the pop ups. I'd guess the intent for him not just immediately grabbing him was moreso a heat of the moment decision out of anger to attack the rest of the cast mocking him (which is still kinda bullshit with how much power Caine is shown to possess).

He starts glitching out when he's upset. I took the Caine popups as perhaps some sort of subconscious protective mechanism. I'm also willing to let it slide because "nobody can ever really defeat Caine since he's omnipotent" wouldn't make for a very good story.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Without Caine to alter their memories and thoughts, will they be able to remember their names?

Seems incredibly likely.

 

[Miss Dindu]

I could've done without the musical number (the body horror was fun though); the awkward silence as they realize this thing has the power to make their lives a living hell if upset enough was one of the more interesting things this show has done (I just wanted to see Caine tear Zooble a new one). That, and didn't the former episode imply that Caine can keep Kinger crazy, if he so chooses? The amount of plot convenience in this episode is back breaking.

 

[Buster Scruggs]

Spoiler: Spoiler just to be nice.

I did love the pay-off with Caine just finally snapping. Instead of snapping because he couldn't feel what it what like to live like AM, Caine snapped because he couldn't handle being unable to make the humans in his world happy. It's honestly the one thing I've been hoping for since they started teasing it after episode 6. I also liked Jax being shown to be just generally insecure as opposed to "totally trans allegory, bro!!' like some fags in the fanbase liked to imply his character represents.

 

[The Marlboro Man]

I'm also willing to let it slide because "nobody can ever really defeat Caine since he's omnipotent" wouldn't make for a very good story.

That's true. I think the issue is moreso the lack of consistency on how powerful Caine is meant to be.

 

[AssignedEva]

he start of the episode shows him eating "circus data",

I wouldn't say it's exactly circus data, I think he was being trained on the sort of stock images that you got on CD-ROMs, and those images happened to skew very circusy (thus what inspired him to create a showman persona and a digital circus environment). He also got photos of the offices, including what I assume is Kinger's cubicle

-Kinger say everyone can conjure but he needs a pc (why can't he conjure a pc?).

He's able to conjure in a very limited context (like the butterfly), but he explains that he needs a PC interface to access Caine's source code (he needs to "conjure" it on the screen). The PC does not actually need to work, he just needed the props to get him into the right headspace to edit machine code and let his imagination power the computer.

 

[Stone Enjoyer]

Can't reply to LucasSomething, but

Spoiler: Theory sperging

It seems like a solid theory that the "game" was perhaps designed to let terminally ill people "survive" by uploading their digital copies to this complex simulation. I would maybe even go a bit further and say that even back then a concept of abstraction was understood, hence the forced removal of one's identifying memories beyond basic personality and interests was introduced (because if they didn't do that, the copy would get destroyed upon remembering their death). Probably didn't have time to actually address the issue due to company going bankrupt

 

[Sparky Lurker]

View attachment 8730698
This tells us a lot.

• The Circus originally started with Caine and the "paraphernalia engine", Oct 15th 1996
• Scratch was the first 'outsider' to arrive, Oct 15th 1999
• Ragatha arrived Oct 15th 2008. This is significant because: A) everything seems to be happening on Oct 15ths and B) in an earlier episode Ragatha doesn't get a Breaking Bad reference, which is plausible considering Breaking Bad only premiered January 20th 2008
• Bubble is confirmed as an AI, arriving the same day as Caine and sharing the same .lisp programme. Could go further and say Bubble was meant to be another AI for creative ideas since they're saved as bubble-chef.lisp however it's purely speculation

There's bound to be more things found out over the coming days as people rewatch it over and over.

At this point I would just take background info with a grain of salt considering last ep claimed Kaufmo was Kinger co-worker but if it's true it would create a galaxy size plothole about how some abandoned office building would go almost an entire decade untouched and nobody would try to sell some ancient VR glass on eBay by now.

 

[Weppers]

So which one of these is Scratch?

 

[Danann]

So during the beginning of the Cain and Abel AIs being the way they are, I can see we have Kinger's office with the chessboard and the butterfly on the wall, so I imagine that the way they end up in the circus is based on analyzing their mental profile and fed information. Queenie (the unfortunately merch-fucked one) is definitely Kinger's wife/girlfriend, and I still bet abstraction occurs when Cain tries to directly manipulate one's mind. The fake offices are also due to these materials fed into Caine
EDIT: ...fuck

 

[Cun75p4rkl35]

This pacing is absolute dogshit
Also what was the point of her bothering to summon the exit door instead of JUST SUMMONING A COMPUTER